Naps Loc: New Jersey USA

Hi,
I have not done any photo editing at all yet. Have access to both programs, which do you all think I should go with?
Also, would it be worth the $25/month to join lynda.com??
Thanks in advance for any advice!

Al McPhee Loc: Boston, Massachusetts

I have not tried lightroom, but have used PSE extensively and find it works well for me.I shoot a lot of news and event photos, and find it does all that I need, including the Adobe Raw Converter plug in for raw files.

Festina Lente Loc: Florida & Missouri

Hard to answer question as they are two different programs by the same publisher with functionality overlap.

There are a number of free editing programs that do a good job. But once you learn a program, your world tends to be based off that experience and a better alternative becomes harder to judge and adopt.

Knowing what I know today, I would get Lightroom 4.1. Best in class and ubiquitously supported. And you will never outgrow it.

Lynda.com is a good source for training. If you learn best that way and will dedicate time to doing so, go for it.
The BEST investment you can make to improve your photography is education. Period.

FredCDobbs Loc: Los Angeles area.

Good question, Ive read the manuals and chat on these two. I got Kelbys book on both and a freebe dvd on Light room.
while I'm on the verge of leaping in, I have gotten a couple generalities out of it. One of Light Room's strengths is it's library organization tools for high volume users.
There are some things PSE does that LR won't do, and I think sharpening is one of them. The Light Room instructions tell you to take your photo to PSE to sharpen it then return to LR if I remember correctly. I seem to like the work flow of LR best but want shapening. I guess that explains why I am looking into both.
I love black and white so I also got NIK Silverefex Pro plugin for those two and it looks like a great tool for the black and white photographer.
I'm sure someone will correct me if sharpening is the wrong missing feature in LR.

Fran Loc: Northeast, United States

I used Lynda.com for a couple of months and got a lot out of it. I viewed a number of lessons taught by Ben Long. He explains the subject so that it is easy to understand and follow.

MtnMan Loc: ID

From what I can tell the biggest difference is that Photoshop Elements enables layers. That provides a huge capability beyond Lightroom.

Photoshop Elements is actually three programs. The Organizer is a "Lightroom light". As the name suggests you can organize your pics with it in fabulous ways and do light editing...such as you can do with Picasa etc.

Adobe Camera RAW (ACR), as its name implies, is for processing RAW files. When you go to the Editor from the Organizer with a RAW file it automatically opens in ACR. ACR also lets you do editing including white blance, cropping, sharpening, etc.

Then there is the Editor. It is what most people think of when they think of Photoshop. It is very capable. Because of that it has a substantial learning curve. If you plan to try it first get the book on it by Kelby and Kloskowski and you might save some frustration.

I looked hard a Lightroom and decided I didn't need it at this time. It is better for larger numbers of photos you want to do similar processing to. That was the only advantage I saw. But I know there are some here that are in love with it.

ata3001

I use both. Lightroom does a far better job with most post processing by not being destructive to any image, plus even after reopening a processed image still retains it's entire processing history. There are functions that Lightroom doesn't do that still requires Elements.Resizing is far easier in Elements
& adding text requires Elements as well. The file management capabilities that is available in Lightroom is simply amazing. I've had CS5, Elements 10 & Lightroom and I rarely used Lightroom, but once I started using it, found it to be a real eye opener as to how superior it is in photo editing. Attached is an image I shot a few weeks ago, post processed using Lightroom, then finished in Elements 10 to add the border & text.

ata3001

Lightroom does have a sharpening adjustment tool as well as adjustments for reducing digital noise & removing chromatic aberrations & does a very good job at doing so. The only things I now find Elements or Photoshop better at is resizing, adding text & that amazing function of content aware cloning. Photoshop or elements is also needed for moving parts around in an image, cloning, combining parts of multiple images, etc.... Neither program is terribly expensive when bought on sale. If I could only have one it would be either Photoshop or Elements only because of the functions it has that Lightroom doesn't have, but for file management, post processing control (color, tonality, clarity, cropping, color adjustments noise reduction, & the list goes on & on), Lightroom is far superior to the same functions offered in Photoshop or Elements. Try cropping an image in Photoshop, then doing any number of other adjustments & then deciding you don't want it cropped after all. With Photoshop, you could go back in your history & undo it but would also lose everything that was done after it. In Lightroom you can remove the crop or change it at any time without losing any history that had been done after the crop. Lightroom also does a far better job of lightening or darkening areas (dodging & burning) than Photoshop. Lightroom is able to bring out shadow detail without looking like it's been pushed to the max, that Photoshop could only dream of. With Photoshop or Elements, you also have a History where you can undo steps done in the processing, but once you close that image & reopen it, that history is gone. You are then forced to start at that point & cannot go back any farther in the process history. With Lightroom, your entire history remains from the very first step even after closing the image & then reopening it for further processing at a later date. Most of my post processing is done in Lightroom, but Elements is still required for a few functions not found in Lightroom. An excellent combo is Lightroom & Elements & Elements can be bought at a bargain price when on sale, often for just $69.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

I'll look for his lessons. The nice thing about lynda is that if you don't like a particular instructor, there are always others to watch.

akfishguide Loc: PA

If you decide to go with LR 4 (which I use all the time) there are free tutorials at Adobetv.com. Julianne Kost is the LR guru and does an awesome job explaining as well as showing how to use LR. As has been stated Education is the key to whichever program you use.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

So far, she's my favorite instructor there. She is, however, not a guru. She is an evangelist. Someday I'll have to find out what the difference is. :D

akfishguide Loc: PA

Guess it depends on your religion. Sort of like Canon vs. Nikon.

bmazz Loc: Vail, CO

Can't comment on Lightroom v. PE because I use Aperture in conjunction with PE. However, re: Lynda.com, it's been invaluable to me. I certainly recommend it

MtnMan Loc: ID

I doubt that most of those who tout the superior organizatioon features of Lightroom learned the capabilities of the Organizer in Photoshop Elements 10. It is a very powerful program in its own right. The ability to search on visual simularity is amazing...and a hoot sometimes. Once you learn to apply keywords as the first thing after loading images your ability to find things becomes awesome. Albums and slideshows etc. are also great in the Organizer, as is the ability to send pics to Facebook etc.

The claim that Elements is somehow destructrive are nonsense. When you save a file it gives you the opportunity to rename it every time, thus not disturbing the original. If you want to be double sure you can "save as".

The default save in Elements is a Photoshop file. If you do not flatten the image it has a complete history of what you did to the image.

One advantage of Lightroom is the ability to save a process of steps and reapply it to other photos in bulk. You can do some bulk processing in Elements but it is clunky. Although Elements can apply "Actions" created in Photoshop you cannot create Actions in Elements. I'm not sure if you can exactly save Actions in Lightroom but you can somehow save a set of steps. Since I don't bulk process I don't miss that.

Shaun Loc: Tucson, AZ

Hi Fred,
I don't think anyone has answered your question about sharpening in Lightroom yet. It not only only has sharpening available, it has a superior sharpening available in that you can mask the sections of the picture that you don't want to sharpen such as large expanses of sky or delicate skin in a portrait. I still find myself exporting a picture to PS5 every now and then to use layers or to add text but I love Lightroom for the quick and logical flow it provides for most photos.